


Summer Sand

by RoAnshi



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:23:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoAnshi/pseuds/RoAnshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starsky and Hutch enjoy a rare day off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Sand

“Hand me another beer, willya?”

From under a beach umbrella, where he had established a bulwark to keep the sun from baking his fair skin—even through the liberally applied layers of sunblock, not to mention the white paste of zinc oxide on his nose—Hutch reached over to wrestle the lid off the cooler they’d dragged along with the rest of their let’s-enjoy-our-day-off supplies to Santa Monica State Beach.

Starsky, his already dark body liberally coated with Coppertone and his Ray-Bans shielding his eyes from the glare, luxuriated in full sun. He stretched like an indolent cat while the “Jaws” shark, printed on a beach towel, swam beneath him. “‘N get one for y’self while you’re in there,” he added magnanimously.

“Haven’t finished the first one yet. Looks like I’ve got some catching up to do.” He scored an ice-cold bottle from the bottom of the cooler, popped off the cap, and held it out. Starsky, eyes closed under the dark glasses, didn’t notice. “Starsk?” he prompted.

“Oh. Yeah.” Cold fingertips brushed against sun-warmed as Hutch passed him the beer. “Sure is hot today.”

Hutch shifted his own sunglasses, staring out at the horizon where Catalina Island rose against the deep blue sky, as distant and insubstantial as Shangri-La. “Nice that for once we don’t have to work in it.”

"Yeah.” Starsky lifted his head enough to down a hearty, foamy swallow, then in a surge of motion, flopped over onto his belly. The hand that didn’t clutch the cold beer shoved his bottle of suntan lotion into Hutch’s shade. “Do my back.”

“Do your own back.”

A long-suffering sigh. “An’ after this was my idea, AN’ I supplied the beer from my very own fridge.”

“Which I bought. How it ended up in your refrigerator, I’ll never know.”

“We keepin’ track of who buys what now? ‘Cause if we are, I claim credit for the hot dogs, the Hostess Twinkies, the Cheez-Whiz, the—“

“Fine, fine.” Hutch squirted abstract lines of lotion across Starsky’s broad back, from shoulderblades to just above the low-slung line of purple paisley swim trunks. Then he shoved his hand in the icy water of the cooler, waited until it was good and cold, then dropped his freezing hand directly into the middle of Starsky’s back.

Starsky almost levitated off the beach towel at the frozen touch. “Aw, shit, Hutch, that’s not nice!” He tipped down his sunglasses, shooting a steely-eyed glare at his partner.

Hutch, wiping off his hand on his own red-hibiscus-patterned trunks, looked away, all innocence. “Didn’t want you to get too overheated in this hot sun now, partner.”

“Yeah, I’ll just bet you didn’t.” Starsky glowered at the roller skaters traveling along the bike path until Hutch, with the hand that had not been immersed in icewater, finished smearing the Coppertone over his back. “Thanks,” he finally grunted, mollified. Hutch laughed.

A long silence, broken only by the distant sounds of a ball game on someone else’s transistor radio, and the tinny strains of the latest Wings hit drifting across the sands from a beachside diner. Then Starsky shifted again, dropping his head to pillow one cheek on his crossed forearms. “Doesn’t get any better than this, does it, Blondie?”

Hutch curled his toes into the hot sand, digging them deep, deeper, until they touched the coolness that always lingered just below the surface. In weeks to come, as the sweltering weather went on, they’d tire of it, of how hot the Torino’s or the LTD’s upholstery got when it was 90 degrees out without a hint of a breeze, of how certain neighborhoods would make the stink of a ripe Dumpster smell good, of how their clothing stuck to the rivulets of sweat that streamed down their bodies after a hot, hard chase, and especially of how the moods of the citizenry they served got downright vicious when cooked in the oven that was Bay City from July to September. But right now, at the start of summer, when the heat was still novel, when his trickling sweat felt like a ritual purification, when the breath of pungent sage rose from the chaparral hills to mix with sea salt to tickle his nose….

“No, Starsk,” he agreed softly, “it doesn’t.”


End file.
